OR

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Process

by
Kathryn McCullough

Early in their careers, many writers write toward a specific goal — the sale of their first script — which they firmly believe will lead to fame, glory, wealth and life on easy street.  When they get there, everything will be set.  The struggle will be over.

What every professional writer learns over time is that the struggle is never over.  For as long as you live, there will be obstacles to your dreams of complete creative bliss.  No matter how famous or successful you are, executives will give you inane story notes, someone will rewrite you, funding will fall through, a studio will shelve your project.  There is no unending easy street.  The most you can hope for is an occasional city block where the potholes are minor and the sidewalk relatively uncrowded.

It is certainly necessary to be driven and to use your dream as fuel to keep you going.  However, too many writers put off much of their life, waiting to live it until they hit this illusive and imaginary state of career nirvana.  You may insist that you are being realistic, and that all you want is just one big sale.  Just the one.  Whatever happens after that happens.  That will be enough for you.  But that’s not the true reality.  Most writers wait several years before that first sale.  Many never get it at all.  Do you really want to spend that time in a sort of suspended animation?  If you do, you may soon find yourself wanting to give up.  And as time goes on, achieving the goal will begin to seem more unlikely and the present will become more unbearable.

The writers who are able to stick out those long years do so because the present is more than bearable — it’s enjoyable — because they’re using it to write.  The conception and execution of your script is the only real pure time you have with your work.  The collaborations you become involved in later may be good or bad — you have no control over them.  But you do have control over your characters as they come to life, as you work out story problems and come up with new and better scenes.  Doing research, studying other films, brainstorming, structuring and writing — these are all your own and no one can take them away from you.

The real joy you get from writing comes when you ARE writing, not afterward.  And if you enjoy the writing, you’ll keep writing.  And if you keep writing, you’ll eventually have success.  But that success will mean nothing if you then lose your connection to the process.  Because then you’ll cease to enjoy writing — and eventually cease writing.  And then you will no longer be a writer.